Using a behavior random permutation model to identify displacement grooming in ungulates  

作　　者：Yunchao Luo Lin Wang Le Yang Xiao-Fen Li Patrick Anselme Xinxin Wang Xingjun Tian Zhongqiu Li 

机构地区：[1]Lab of Animal Behavior and Conservation,School of Life Sciences,Nanjing University,Nanjing 210023,China [2]Tibet Plateau Institute of Biology,Lhasa 850000,China [3]Department of Electrical Engineering,Shanghai Jiao Tong University,800 DongChuan Road,Shanghai 200240,China [4]Department of Biopsychology,Ruhr-Universitat Bochum 44801,Bochum,Germany

出　　处：《Current Zoology》2023年第2期200-207,共8页动物学报（英文版）

基　　金：Authors thank the Tibet Major Science and Technology Project(XZ201901-GA-06);National Natural Science Foundation of China(grant nos.31360141 and 31772470);West Light Foundation of Chinese Academy of Sciences(2015)in supporting the study financially.

摘　　要：Behavior affects an individual's life in all aspects,e.g.,enhancing fitness,leveraging predation risk,and reducing competition with conspecifics.However,the sequential distribution of behaviors received less attention and is unclear what the function of displacement behavior is.Displacement activities can be found in vertebrate species but there is no formal method to determine whether a behavior is expressed as a displaced or normal activity.Analyzing the sequential distributions of behaviors in a natural setting may allow researchers to identify unexpected distributions as a possible signature of displacement activities.In this study,we used a behavior random permutation model to detect the presence of a displacement activity in the Tibetan antelope Pantholops hodgsonii and the Tibetan gazelle Procapra picticaudata.The results showed that grooming in both ungulates tended to be accompanied with vigilance,and the frequency of grooming after vigilance was significantly higher than before vigilance.A significant positive correlation between the scan rate and grooming rate in the 2 ungulates was obtained.We suggest that grooming could sometimes be expressed as a displacement activity in ungulates.In addition to providing a general method for further research on displacement activities in a variety of animal species,this study sheds light on the importance of a spectral analysis of sequential distribution of animal behaviors.Behavior random permutation models can be used to explore the relevance between any 2 behaviors in a specific sequence,especially to identify a myriad of unexpected behaviors relative to their normal context of occurrence.

关 键 词：behavior sequence displacement activity SELF-GROOMING VIGILANCE random distribution behavioral analysis method 

分 类 号：Q95[生物学—动物学]